As I passed the entrance to Luna Park, high-pitched laughter from a thousand children screamed out at me, as if the park itself were alive. It reminded me of the first time I’d ever been there as a child, when my family came to Melbourne and stayed with relatives. I remembered the ghost train and dodgem cars, how a girl threw up inside the spinning gravitron. I remembered my mother buying us fairy floss and ice cream.

How ironic, I thought. That so many children came here to play, so many idyllic memories forged in a place that for other kids symbolises only pain and sorrow. But that was St Kilda, the home of extremes.

Children played in Luna Park while paedophiles preyed on runaways in the surrounding gardens. The homeless begged for change in streets lined with luxury cars and trendy nightclubs. Drug addicts bought and sold meth and smack less than a stone’s throw from tourists in restaurants with hundred-dollar-a-head price tags. Cheap hostels provided accommodation to ex-felons and prostitutes alongside homes priced in the millions. And every morning large machines ploughed the beach, removing broken bottles and syringes that hid in the sand like urban landmines.

The coexistence of danger and pleasure, risk and excitement. That’s the St Kilda I know...

Det Sgt Rubens McCauley, St Kilda Criminal Investigation Unit